was offered
in the streets. Since the civil population took part in this fight
our troops were compelled to reply with corresponding measures.
If, therefore, the German troops should carry out their threat
against the peaceful inhabitants of the Russian territory which
they hold, such acts should be considered not as reprisals but
as independent acts. Responsibility for this, as well as for the
consequences, would rest upon the Germans."

The move against Memel was apparently part of a Russian operation
which was intended also to strike at the city of Tilsit. The German
Great Headquarters reported that for operations intended to seize
the northern regions of East Prussia a so-called Riga-Shavli army
group had been formed under the command of General Apuchtin. While
portions of these troops were active in Memel on March 18, 1915,
the fourteen German Landsturm companies holding Tauroggen, just to
the north of the East Prussian boundary, were attacked by superior
forces and practically surrounded. They fought their way through
to Langszargen with some difficulty, and were being pressed back
on the road to Tilsit when on March 23 German reenforcements came
up and General von Pappritz, leading the Germans, went over to
the offensive.

A heavy thaw made movement of troops anywhere except on the main
roads extremely difficult. Guns were left stuck in the mud, and the
infantry waded to the knee in water, and sometimes to the waist.
It is reported that one of the horses of the artillery literally
was drowned on the road. Germans attacked Tauroggen, where the
enemy had intrenched himself, under an artillery fire directed
from the church tower of the place. On the 28th the town was taken,
after a difficult crossing of the Jura River in front of it, on
the ice. The Germans then exulted in the fact that not a Russian
was left on German soil.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XLII

GERMAN INVASION OF COURLAND--CAPTURE OF LIBAU

On the 20th of April, 1915, an announcement was made by the German
Great Headquarters which took the Russians and the world in general
more or less by surprise. It gave the first glimpse to the public
of a group of operations which caused no little speculation in
the minds of strategists. It read:

"The advance troops of our forces operating in northwestern Russia
yesterday reached on a broad front the railway running from Dunaburg
(Dvinsk) to Libau. Thus far the Russian troops p